SIMD Group Formation Techniques for Primitive Testing associated with Ray Intersect Traversal

A method, comprising:

• executing, by shader circuitry, a ray intersect instruction for a first SIMD group, wherein the instruction indicates coordinate information for a first set of rays in a graphics scene;
• and
• traversing, by ray intersect circuitry in response to the ray intersect instruction, multiple nodes in a spatially organized acceleration data structure, wherein the nodes include multiple nodes that indicate coordinates of bounding regions and multiple nodes that indicate primitives in the graphics scene;
• forming, in response to reaching a node of the acceleration data structure that indicates one or more primitives, a second SIMD group that operates on a second set of rays that only partially overlaps with the first set of rays, wherein the second SIMD group executes one or more instructions to determine whether rays in the second set of rays intersect the one or more primitives;
• and
• shading, by the shader circuitry, one or more primitives that are indicated as intersected based on results of execution of the second SIMD group.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereon design information that specifies a design of at least a portion of a hardware integrated circuit in a format recognized by a semiconductor fabrication system that is configured to use the design information to produce the circuit according to the design, wherein the design information specifies that the circuit includes:

• shader circuitry configured to execute a ray intersect instruction for a first SIMD group, wherein the instruction indicates coordinate information for a first set of rays in a graphics scene;
• and
• ray intersect circuitry configured to traverse, in response to the ray intersect instruction, multiple nodes in a spatially organized acceleration data structure, wherein the nodes include multiple nodes that indicate coordinates of bounding regions and multiple nodes that indicate primitives in the graphics scene;
• wherein the circuit is configured to form in response to reaching a node of the acceleration data structure that indicates one or more primitives, a second SIMD group that operates on a second set of rays that only partially overlaps with the first set of rays, wherein the second SIMD group includes one or more instructions to determine whether rays in the second set of rays intersect the one or more primitives;
• and
• wherein the shader circuitry is configured to shade one or more primitives that are indicated as intersected based on results of execution of the second SIMD group.